A cross party-group of MPs has called for an end to the
indefinite detention of migrants, warning that too many people are being
unnecessarily detained, sometimes for as long as four years, under a system
they characterise as “expensive, ineffective and unjust”. Britain’s “deeply
shocking” treatment of vulnerable asylum-seekers sees innocent people held for
years in detention centres. People fleeing torture or persecution to seek
refuge in the UK should no longer be detained for more than 28 days in
immigration removal centres, as evidence suggests spending any longer locked up
can be catastrophic for their health, the report by a cross-party group of MPsand peers recommends.

The panel expressed concern that individuals detained under
immigration powers were “increasingly being held in prison-like conditions”.
The biggest immigration removal centres are either converted high-security
prisons or have been built to that specification. Detainees should be held in
“suitable accommodation that is conducive to an open and relaxed regime”, the
report suggests. The panel concluded that “depriving an individual of their
liberty for the purposes of immigration detention should be an absolute last
resort and only used to effect removal”. The report described the conditions in
which migrants and asylum seekers, who are not convicted criminals, are held as
“tantamount to high security prison settings”.

Members of the panel said they were shocked by some of the
testimonies they heard from current and former detainees, some of whom had been
held for years, without being told when they were likely to be released. They
concluded that current Home Office policy puts the health of detainees at
“serious risk”. The UK is the only country in the European Union not to have an
upper time limit on detention. Some of their testimonies made MPs gasp with
horror – among them accounts of suicide attempts, being handcuffed for hospital
treatment, and of women detainees being sexually harassed by guards.

David Burrowes, Conservative MP and panel member, said: “Immigration
is on the political agenda, but rarely do we unite on a cross-party basis and
consider the issue of immigration detention. The lack of a time limit is
resulting in people being locked up for months and, in some cases, several
years, purely for administrative reasons.”

The panel brought together MPs and law lords from across the
spectrum, from former Conservative cabinet minister Caroline Spelman to
Labour’s Paul Blomfield, as well as the former chief inspector of prisons, Lord
Ramsbotham.

“What is unusual about the panel is that it brings together
people who do not agree on all aspects of reform of the immigration system –
some are more hawkish, some are more liberal – but we are united in thinking
that the current system is ineffective and inhumane,” Liberal Democrat MP Sarah
Teather, who chaired the inquiry, said.

“Some lose hope and they try to kill themselves,” one
detainee told the inquiry. “Some try burning themselves with whatever they can
get. Some try hanging themselves in the shower. They think it’s the only way
out. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. Detention is a way to destroy people:
they do not kill you directly, but instead you kill yourself.”

A three-month undercover investigation by Channel 4 news
revealed serious instances of sexism and racism among Serco staff running the
Yarl’s Wood immigration centre. Guards at the centre were filmed describing
various detainees as “black bitch” and “evil”. At one point a guard was filmed
commenting: “They are all slashing their wrists, apparently. Let them slash
their wrists ... It’s attention seeking.”

Home Office officials are failing to follow guidance that
immigration detention should be used sparingly. Current Home Office policy puts
the health of detainees at serious risk.

At the end of 2014, there were 3,462 people in immigration
detention centres, 24% higher than at the end of 2013; 397 had been detained
for more than 6 months, 108 for longer than a year, and 18 for longer than two
years. During 2014, 30,365 entered detention, an increase of 17% since 2010.

Syriza’s
victory in the Greek elections on an anti-austerity programme has been hailed
by leftwing groups in Britain such as TUSC (which is among our opponents in
Swansea West, Oxford East and Folkestone and Hythe) as showing the way
forward here. “If they can do it so can we”, TUSC proclaimed , so vote for us to end
austerity.

No doubt, in theory, people in Britain could vote
for anti-austerity parties and a Green/TUSC government, supported perhaps by
the SNP, (since that’s what we’d be talking about) come to power. In practice
of course this is fantasy politics. But let’s continue to fantasise and imagine
that a government committed to ending austerity did come to power in the
general election, what would happen?

We need look no further than, precisely, Greece.
The people there have voted against austerity, but the government can’t end it.

All the Syriza government will be able to do – and seems in fact to be doing – is to reorganise austerity so as to mitigate its
effects on those who have been the hardest
hit. To distribute austerity differently, but not to end it. This, not
because they are sell-outs or not determined enough but because they have been
set an impossible: to stop conditions for workers getting worse when capitalism
is in one of its recurring economic downturns.

Voting against austerity is one thing; ending
austerity is another. The electorate proposes, but capitalism disposes. Which
shows how democracy can’t function properly
under capitalism since people can vote for something but the economic forces of
capitalism prevent it being carried out.

An anti-austerity government in Britain would be
in no different a position. It, too, would only be able to redistribute
austerity. TUSC is pretty vague about what it thinks should be done to end
austerity: nationalise the banks, renationalise the denationalised industries, “tax the rich”, “invest to create and protect jobs”, as well as increasing pensions and benefits. In
Greece the group linked to the
Trotskyist group which is the dominant force behind TUSC , the old Militant
Tendency, is more explicit.

“ … Syriza should put the question squarely in
front of the Greek working people: Keep the euro and the memoranda or go for a
national currency and pro-workers' policies … Exiting the euro on its own will
not solve the crisis of Greek capitalism. The re-introduction of a national
currency must by necessity be combined with bold socialist policies: like
capital controls, state monopoly of foreign trade and democratic public
ownership of the big corporations and banks – and a class internationalist appeal to the workers of the rest of
Europe.”

Such
a state-capitalist siege economy would no more be able to end austerity
(capital controls and a state monopoly of foreign trade are “bold”
state-capitalist measures not “socialist policies”) than the discredited
Keynesian policies other propose. In all probability, it would make things
worse. It’s not as if some countries haven’t been there before.

The anti-austerity promises of TUSC are just as
empty as the promises of the conventional politicians.

The way forward is socialism, real socialism,
where the productive forces of society have become common property of the whole
community and democratically used to produce what people need, instead of being
used as at present to produce for sale on a market with a view to making a
profit for those who currently own and control them (or for some emergent state
capitalist bureaucracy).

Monday, March 02, 2015

Sabine Kradolfer, an anthropology and
sociology researcher, says swap exchanges were set up in Argentina
after the 2001-2002 crisis. While the gratiferia (free fair) may
be a cousin of swaps, Sabine Kradolfer says that these free fairs do
not arise from that crisis nor from the current economic situation,
which is more stable in Argentina than in Europe. "But there is
a vision of society that underlies all these movements," she
adds. "It is the idea that humans are not selfish
individualists, alone and separated from society, as expected by
neo-conservative economics. Instead they feel part of a vast group,
the local and global community. By giving, people feel that they are
linked."

The gratiferia concept
originally comes from Argentina and then expanded to neighboring
countries and all of Latin America. The idea was quickly taken up in
the U.S. and Canada, and this year, it has arrived in the Old World.
This free fair aims at "liberation from materialism,"
with the goal of leaving behind "the oppression of the
economic system."

The gratiferia arrived in Europe mainly through social
networks. The idea of anti-materialism engaged people, for example
Céline, 39, who coordinated one of the first such fairs in France,
at the beginning of September in Châteauneuf-sur-Charente. The goal
is "to pass along things we no longer need, that can be
useful to someone else," she says. Each person can come and
drop off or take all kinds of objects. Céline's sister Isabelle, 43,
who organized the event with her, estimates that 1,500 people came to
the fair, which took place on land lent by the municipality. "We
didn't expect so many people, because the concept was unknown here.
There were people of every social class, families... Some people came
out of curiosity. The atmosphere was very relaxed."
However, the goal of a gratiferia is not just to get rid
of your possessions, but to have the experience of giving them up and
donating to others. Céline, who already exchanged things with
friends, is happy at the notion that this "innovative
concept" could "shake up European thinking, because
it's free."
Christine Muller, a member of the green Ecolo party in Hannut,
Belgium, shares her feelings. The party organized its first
gratiferia in July. "We wanted to give a real
meaning to 'free,' and show that not everything is about money,"
she explains.from here

Timebanks:

“Our mission is to nurture and expand
a timebanking movement that promotes equality and builds caring
community economies through inclusive exchanges of time and talents.”

Timebanking is mutual credit, where whenever
somebody provides a service to a member in a timebank, they get
credit, which they can redeem for that same amount of time to get
something they need from someone else in the network. It’s fluid
and flexible. Timebanking doesn’t have to involve a direct exchange
between two people, and it doesn’t have to happen in the same span
of time.Matching people up based on who needs what
and who can provide what is a different approach to an economy. It’s
an understanding that everybody has needs and everybody has assets.
Also, you don’t have to wait to have money to pay for a service you
need.The norm in this society is that we have a
human-service kind of economy through charity. There’s a group of
people who serve and a group of people who are served. Timebanking
takes the approach that we all engage, as equals, based on what we
have to offer and what we need.It’s also really good at connecting people
who wouldn’t otherwise meet. As a community-building and community
cohesion tool, it’s excellent. It helps people get past barriers
that they’ve grown up with, whether it’s racism, or classism, or
ageism. It really helps people get to know each other across
demographic and geographic boundaries.About 40 counties around the world have
timebanks. In the US, our best guess is that there are between 200
and 300, with more being created regularly.from here

Free Access:

What has any of this to do with
socialism one may ask. From swap to share, exchange to participate,
give to partake, the lexicon is about building strength in and
between individuals and communities for the good of the whole. Ways
of improving quality of life and bringing organisational skills to
achieve results not satisfied by current policies, putting
possibilities of people power into more hands – what are these and
similar movements offering to communities big and small if not the
opportunity to reassess the established reality of life in a
capitalist world? Here are people around the world working in
different ways against the established system, showing others the
shortfalls, and proving in different ways that growing numbers are
dissatisfied, unrepresented and seeking a radically different way of
organising and living their lives.

'Everybody has needs and everybody
has assets' – to each
according to need from each according to ability. From these few
samples above of people's attempts to work outside of the system, to
offer an alternative approach, we can recognise the unsuppressed
willingness of humankind to cooperate .

Give
and take, however one interprets it, needs to be reclaimed by all of
us on the road to socialism.

Here's the manifesto
we put out in Vauxhall for the 2005 General Election. It is still appropriate
today.

The Socialist Party is contesting this election as a part of
our campaign to establish a new system of society:

One based on the common ownership and democratic control of
the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the
interest of the whole community.

That is our sole object.

By common ownership we don't mean that everyone should have
to share a toothbrush, but that in a society built upon our mutual effort, we
should all benefit and have a say in how it is run.

We currently live in a system of society based on a tiny
number of people owning the productive wealth of our world, organised and run
by a handful of bosses for their benefit. Their profits come first, our needs
come second.

In Vauxhall nearly half of all workers are employed in
administering business as compared with only a quarter in social services and
looking after ourselves (derived from 2001 Census).

Because of this we have endless problems of poverty, poor
services and all the issues politicians love to spend time telling you they can
solve, if only given the chance.

We don't believe any politician can solve these problems, as
long as the flawed basis of our society remains intact. In fact, we believe
only you and your fellow workers can solve these problems.

We believe that it will take a revolution in how we organise
our lives, a fundamental change. We want to see a society based on the fact
that you know how to run your lives, know your needs and have the skills and
capacity to organise with your fellows to satisfy them.

You know yourselves and your lives better than a handful of
bosses ever can.

With democratic control of production we can ensure that
looking after our communities becomes a priority, rather than something we do
in our spare time.

We all share fundamental needs, for food, clothing, housing
and culture, and we have the capacity to ensure access to these for all, without
exception.

If you agree with this aim, then we ask you to get in touch
with us, get involved and join in our campaign to bring about this change in
society.

Together, we have the capacity to run our world for
ourselves. We need to build a movement to effect that change, by organising
deliberately to take control of the political offices which rule our lives, and bring
them into our collective democratic control.

Our candidate makes no promises, offers no pat solutions,
only to be the means by which you can remake society for the common good.

Danny Lambert

The Socialist Party
candidate.

Danny Lambert is once
again your Vauxhall constituency Socialist Party candidate for the May 2015 General Election

Sunday, March 01, 2015

When Nepal's government outlawed bonded labour in 2008 and
promised to compensate victims, farmworker Hiralal Pariyar was elated to walk
away from a life spent in virtual slavery. But the compensation never came,
leaving a homeless and penniless Pariyar little choice but to return to his old
landlord. "Nothing has changed in six years. From the day I was born until
now, the landlord has owned my life," the 38-year-old told AFP.

More than six years after it was outlawed, bonded labour
remains rife in Nepal, where landless farmworkers known as "haliyas"
(ploughmen) are born into slavery and passed on from one generation of
landlords to the next. Many hoped for change when a newly-elected government
led by former Maoist rebels freed them from bondage in September 2008, months
after Nepal cast off a 240-year-old monarchy and became a republic. The Maoists
had promised to end centuries of inequality and write a constitution that would
transform a country where one out of four people survive on less than $1.25 a
day. Successive administrations have pledged reparations for the haliyas, but
no one has received any financial compensation and a long-promised programme of
land ownership reform has yet to materialise. This has meant their lives have
remained much as they were before being 'freed' - they are still reliant on
landlords. Pariyar's calloused hands and chronic shoulder pain testify to a
life spent pulling the plough. A sixth-generation bonded labourer, he started
working when he was just 13, clocking 15-hour days in exchange for room and
board.

"We are like the landlord's inherited property - my
grandfather worked for them, then my father, now me," he said. In all
those years, little has changed in his village, Thehe, home to segregated
haliya settlements with no electricity or running water. Like Pariyar, most
haliyas belong to the impoverished Dalit or "untouchable" Hindu
community and are forbidden to work indoors, enter temples or even take water
from taps used by upper-caste villagers and their animals.

As Pariyar dragged a plough across his landlord's hilly plot
on a wintry morning, he said nothing would make him happier than to see the
practice end. "But I can no longer imagine a day when I will be out of
this prison," he said. "I don't even dream of it any more."

Although the ties connecting landlord and labourer are
binding, they are rarely intimate. "They see us as untouchables, they
don't interact with us, they only care if we come to work or not," said
Nani Biswokarma, a 23-year-old haliya working in Baraunsi village in Nepal's
remote north-west. The mother of two told AFP she worried "all the
time" about her children's future. “We have no money, no house, no land,
nothing - we can't afford to educate them," she said. "I want them to
have better lives but I can't see how it will happen."

Parbat Sunar was one of a handful of haliya children able to
attend school thanks to a bargain his family struck with their landlord. Even
the classroom was not free from discrimination - he and other low-caste
children were told to sit on the floor, not on school benches. "I felt
very hurt and wondered why we were always on the floor. I used to feel
tormented by it," said Sunar, who now heads a non-profit group fighting
for haliya rights. "This country's laws were written solely for the
benefit of the upper castes. All the land belonged to them, haliyas had no
option, we had to agree to their terms to survive."

Laxman Kumar Hamal, a government official responsible for
haliya resettlement, blamed a lack of money for the delay. "I know it's taken years, we are trying
to resettle them but we have budget constraints and cannot purchase land for
all of them in one go," Hamal explained. "We hope to resettle more
haliyas in the months to come," Hamal said. Although the 2006 peace deal
between the Maoists and the state underscored the need for a "scientific
land reform programme...ending the feudalistic system of landholding", no
political party has asked landlords to hand over land to haliyas. Sunar says
just 80 of the 19,000 haliya families identified by the government had received
land. "We had high expectations
from lawmakers after their claims of building a new Nepal, but they have done
nothing," he said.

One of the seats we
are contesting is Swansea West. This is the first time we have stood in a
general election in Wales. But doesn't mean that we have not been active at
general election time there before. Here is a leaflet put out by the Swansea
Branch for 1970 General Election. This socialist message is as relevant today
as it was then.

Fellow Worker,

The Swansea Branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain,
ask you to consider this message.

Pay no attention to the glib promises or the tricks of the
professional politicians, as shown on the TV or heard on the radio, the sham
battles conducted in the press, the talk of better times to come, all the
nonsense used at every general election. You should look behind all this for
the facts.

WHY YOU BEING ASKED
TO VOTE?

You are being asked to decide by your votes whether a Labour
or Conservative Government is in your interest. In fact, by voting for either
of these parties you are taking part in an act of enormous political pretence.

Which ever of these parties gains a majority it will make
but very little difference to you. When the ballyhoo has ceased and you
continue the old struggle to make do on a wage packet that is never sufficient,
you will look back on this election as one more stunt. The Party Leaders' know
that there are crisis ahead. The party which forms the government will insult
you by telling you that the 'country' cannot afford higher wages, the old cry
will be raised, we must have more productivity, which means that workers must
work harder. The old lie will be used, high wages cause high prices.

All that you are going to decide by your votes, by your
support of these parties, is whether the present conditions of society shall be
administered by a Labour or Conservative Government.

WHY IS THIS?

The productive forces of today are sufficient to make it
possible to provide every man, woman arid child with the necessities of life.
Access to these necessities are today restricted by the amount of wages
received, or the amount of money available. The productive resources of the
world are not used primarily to produce food, clothing and shelter, their prime
function is to produce goods and services for sale with a view to profit. This
presupposes two things. First, the means of production must be owned by private
individuals, companies, corporations and state owned or controlled concerns.
Second, the need for markets and access to them, also a market for labour
power. These conditions are common to most parts of the world and prevent
modern industrial techniques being used to serve the interests of humanity.
This is Capitalism.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

To most voters the policies of the capitalist parties seem
quite sound. Poverty, pay higher wages, bigger pensions, more money for family
allowances. These policies and numerous others, have in the past, and will at
this election, attract millions of voters.

The reformers have their explanations, yet workers' poverty
persists in spite of the changes in wages and conditions. During the 1960's
wages in this country, in spite of attempts by the Labour Government to
restrict them, reached a record high in terms of money. This was, of course,
cancelled out by the rise in prices. We have the business of wages chasing
prices and never catching up, so workers remain in much the same position. Old
age pensioners have received increases over the same period, it is estimated
that two million of them have to draw supplementary benefits so that they can
eke out a miserable existence. Labour and Conservative parties persistently
promise to solve the housing problem. We now have the charity organisation
'Shelter' as an answer to the failure of the politicians'. Shelter at least
acknowledges it as a poverty problem.

The policy of capitalist reform has over the years shown
that it is useless to deal with the problems of capitalism in isolation,
suppress one and it will reappear in some form or another. Capitalism is the
cause of the problems. The wages system must be abolished to remove the problems
to which it gives rise in its place a system of society must be established,
which shall be based upon the common ownership of all the means of production,
with the common access to all the needs of life. Workers' today produce all the
means of life, and perform all the necessary services in society.

"From all according to their ability, to all according
to their needs". This is what must be achieved – SOCIALISM.

Your Socialist Party
(GB) Swansea West candidate in the
May 2015 election is Brian Johnson

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Numerous newly discovered massive craters across Siberia—believed
to have been formed by methane gas exploding through a thawing
permafrost—may be the latest visible signs that climate change is
here, and it's changing the very contours of the earth's surface.
A 100-foot crater was first spotted last summer in Yamal
peninsula, a freezing cold land 2,000 miles north of Moscow, and two
other funnels were discovered soon after. While it is not entirely clear what caused the blowholes, the
dominant theory is that global warming has thawed the permafrost
causing methane trapped inside the icy ground to explode.
In a new development, the Siberian Times reported this
week that such funnels, in fact, are "more widespread than was
first realized."

"We know now of seven craters in
the Arctic area," Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, deputy
director of the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, part of
the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the paper. "We must
research this phenomenon urgently, to prevent possible disasters."

The bursts of methane—a highly flammable gas—are themselves
dangerous, and many researchers are frightened to study the funnels
as a result.
This phenomenon has long been warned about by climate scientists
and now what the funnels reveal about the rising temperature in the
Arctic is that it is heating twice as fast as the rest of the planet.

A new Reuters/IPSOS poll has found that a significant majority of
Americans say combating climate change is a moral issue that
obligates them – and world leaders - to reduce carbon emissions.The poll of 2,827 Americans was
conducted in February to measure the impact of moral language,
including interventions by Pope Francis, on the climate change
debate. In recent months, the pope has warned about the moral
consequences of failing to act on rising global temperatures, which
are expected to disproportionately affect the lives of the world’s
poor.The result of the poll suggests that
appeals based on ethics could be key to shifting the debate over
climate change in the United States, where those demanding action to
reduce carbon emissions and those who resist it are often at
loggerheads. Two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said that world leaders are
morally obligated to take action to reduce CO2 emissions. And 72
percent said they were “personally morally obligated” to do what
they can in their daily lives to reduce emissions.

“When climate change is viewed through a moral lens it has broader
appeal,” said Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values
Network. “The climate debate can be very intellectual at times, all
about economic systems and science we don’t understand. This makes
it about us, our neighbors and about doing the right thing.”

'Moral' and 'ethical' to most people means conforming to notions
or accepted standards of what is 'right' and 'good', to recognised
standards based on fairness and equity, something akin to treating
others as one wishes to be treated oneself. With that in mind, and
recognising that this was a poll of very small numbers, respondents
concurred that there is a need to seriously address the challenges of
climate change, both at the national and personal levels. Socialists
would point out that acting at a personal level by changing daily use
habits or shopping for green alternatives actually makes minimal
difference to the overall problem BUT that when the majority of us
come to the realisation that the system which exploits us and our
planet's resources can't function without our compliance, then
together, overcoming any superficial differences, we are in a strong
position to make the difference we choose. It is global capitalism
that we must overcome together to have any realistic hope of averting
climate disaster.
Bringing together people who are prepared to make changes at the
individual level to protect future generations with those global
populations who are demanding national and international structural change leads
to the ability to implement the results the vast majority is seeking.

There is an alternative to the current system, another way of
organising society - one which is built on the concept of democracy,
with access for all to the necessities of life. Isn't that what
people are clamouring for world wide - to live in societies run by
the people for the people? That alternative is socialism.

Election candidates are being asked by the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) for
their views on what is happening to the NHS. Naturally, as socialists we see
nothing wrong with the idea that health care should be provided out of the
resources available to society as a whole and that people should have free
access to health care and medicines as and when they need them. It's what will
happen in a socialist society.

Attempts to achieve this within capitalism run up against
all sorts of problems, as the history and current state of the NHS show.

The basic problem arises from the fact that, as far as the
minority who own society's resources are concerned, there is no such thing as a
free service. Anything provided free has to be paid for out of taxation and in
the end taxes fall on their property and their profits.

So, the free service gets undermined at both ends. The funds
to finance it are cheese-pared and charges are introduced. Some services remain
free at the point of use but come to be provided by profit-seeking enterprises.
Given capitalism, the service cannot be run democratically but has to be
administered by a bureaucracy whose remit is to save money by cutting costs,
including the cost of paying the wages and salaries of those who work for the
service.

It's a never-ending battle by trade unions and pressure
groups to try to stop this happening. A defensive and often losing struggle
just to stop things getting worse.

A free health service in the midst of an economy based on
production for profit will always be insecure. The NHS was introduced in the
first place because it suited the minority owning class to have a relatively
healthy and productive workforce that, when sick, could be quickly treated and
got back to work as soon as possible. Now that more and more of those needing
health care are retired the owning class are less interested in paying for the
NHS and it shows.

The only way to secure a lasting free health service is as
part of a socialist society where there will no longer be class ownership of
society's resources or production for profit. Then, all services and not just
health care will be both free and democratically administered. Where will the
money to pay for this come from, the clever dick interviewer will ask? Nowhere,
as there won't be any money, just resources and these exist in sufficient
quantity especially after the artificial scarcity and organised waste of
capitalist society have been removed.

Friday, February 27, 2015

Our candidates have received, along with the other
candidates standing in the same constituency, the following invitation from an
organisation calling itself Simpol (Simultaneous Policy)

“As candidates in the forthcoming General Election, we
invite you to pledge your early support to the Simultaneous Policy (Simpol)
campaign. Simpol is an international association of citizens who use their
votes to encourage their political representatives to implement solutions to
global problems that individual nations, or groupings such as the EU, cannot
tackle alone; problems such as global warming, financial market re-regulation
and other transnational issues. (….) The global problems Simpol addresses are
not being dealt with adequately by national governments, or by the EU, because
of the fear that acting unilaterally will harm their economic competitiveness.
That is why, under Simpol, solutions are to be implemented by nations
simultaneously, only when all or sufficient nations have signed the Pledge.”

To which we have
replied:

The Socialist Party fully agrees that global problems such
as, precisely, global warming can only be dealt with by action on a global
scale. However, we think that, because of capitalism's nature as a system of
production for profits by competing enterprises and states, the sort of
simultaneous political action you advocate to deal with these problems just
won't happen as long as capitalist continues to exist. The most that will
happen would be far too little far too late. This, for the reasons you yourself
outline of concern for profits and competitiveness on world markets.

The only framework within which the required global actions
can be taken is a world community without frontiers where the resources of the
Earth, natural and industrial, have become the common heritage of all humanity.
Then, the vested commercial, economic and geopolitical interests that impede
such action under capitalism will no longer exist. Humanity will be free to
find a solution to the various global problems (as indeed to regional and local
problems) in a rational way and in the common interest. Purely capitalist
problems like unregulated financial markets would not need to be dealt with
since in a non-capitalist world there would no longer be any financial markets.

I pledge to work towards the establishment of such a world
socialist system by democratic political action.

If there is no Socialist Party candidate in your
constituency, that doesn't stop you helping via the internet and social media.
We are reaching out to people who are interested in socialist ideas and trying
to draw them closer to our movement.

World leaders decided that global warming should be limited
to 2 degrees Celsius. Achieving that target, though, would take nothing less
than a miracle. It is becoming increasingly clear that mankind has failed to
address its most daunting problem. Since 1880, when global temperatures began
to be systematically collected, no year has been warmer than 2014. The 15
warmest years, with one single exception, have come during the first 15 years
of the new millennium. Indeed, it has become an open question as to whether
global warming can be stopped anymore -- or at least limited as policymakers
have called for. Should greenhouse gas emissions continue as they are today,
the world will likely reach the 2 degree Celsius maximum within 30 years.
Indeed, in order to have any chance at all of stopping global warming at 2
degrees Celsius, emissions would have to fall by 10 percent per year starting
in 2017 at the latest, says Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy
Agency.

Take Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. He’s extremely
proud of his country's wonder of the world, the Great Barrier Reef. At the same
time, though, Abbott believes that burning coal is "good for
humanity," even though it produces greenhouse gases that ultimately make
our world's oceans warmer, stormier and more acidic. In recent years, Australia
has exported more coal than any other country in the world. And the reef, the
largest living organism on the planet, is dying. Half of the corals that make
up the reef are, in fact, already dead.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Our candidate for Oxford East, Kevin Parkin, has received
the following enquiry as to our policy on climate change:

“To have some chance of keeping future climate change from
moving into unknown and possibly catastrophic levels, climate scientists agree
that global temperature increase must be restricted to below 2˚ C. Accordingly,
at the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, 167 of the world’s governments –
representing countries responsible for 87% of carbon emissions and including
our own – subscribed to that figure. To keep within that limit, it is
calculated that the world can afford to pump only one trillion tonnes of CO2
into the atmosphere – that is the total global carbon budget. It doesn’t matter
exactly when this is done but the limit must not be exceeded. This in turn
means leaving 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

On behalf of Low
Carbon Headington, Low Carbon South Oxford and Global Justice Oxford, we are writing to all prospective
parliamentary candidates to ask the following:

• Does your
party accept the need to leave 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground?

• Which of
your party’s policies will ensure the rise in global temperatures is restricted
to below 2˚C and how will they achieve this level?

• What is your
personal commitment to ensuring these limits are adhered to?”

We have replied:

The Socialist Party accepts that global warming is slowly
taking place and that the past and present release of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is largely responsible. So, yes,
there is a need to cut back on this by employing alternative methods of
generating energy.

As this is a global problem, to deal with it requires
co-ordinated action on a world scale but this is proving impossible under
capitalism because of vested commercial interests and the security of energy
supply considerations of the various competing states into which the world is
divided.

As Naomi Klein has pointed out in her recent book ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the
Climate’, it is the capitalist system of production for profit by competing
enterprises that is responsible both for the existence of the problem and for
impeding effective action to deal with it. Some timid and wholly inadequate
measures may be agreed at international level but that’s the most that will
happen under capitalism, as we explain in this article “Too Little, Too Late”:

This is why we say that the only framework within which the
problem can be rationally and lastingly dealt with is where the Earth’s natural
and industrial resources have become the common heritage of all humanity. To
make this point, and to encourage action to bring about such a world, is one of
the reasons why we are standing in this election.

We have no specific policies for dealing with the problem
within capitalism. In fact we think this is a waste of valuable time – fiddling
while Rome burns – as the problem continues and gets worse. We know that the
scientific knowledge and the technological ability to deal effectively with the
problem exist and are confident that they would be rapidly applied once world
capitalism has been replaced by a world of common ownership, democratic control
and production directly for use not profit.

Naomi Klein’s book is reviewed in the current (February) edition
of our magazine here:

If there is no Socialist Party candidate in your
constituency, that doesn't stop you helping. Those who do NOT have the opportunity of voting for the Socialist Party candidates in the ten
listed constituencies, a sticker has been produced and available on request for
members and sympathisers to freely make use of as they see fit.

The legacy of 2014 will likely be that the world suffered a
"historic failure" in human rights, according to
Amnesty International's annual assessment.
Released Wednesday, the
human rights report says that the year had been "devastating"
for civilians caught in the cross-hairs of war and that
governments "failed miserably" to protect those most
in need.

The report broadly condemns violence and oppression, whether from
international bodies or from violent extremists. Further, Amnesty
charges that government crackdown in response to such violence
further exacerbates the dangers by suppressing civil society and
other human rights efforts. But one doesn't need to be living in a
war torn area or a refugee camp to grasp the level of horror or
simply the difficulties of day to day living in such places. Violence
and oppression can also be witnessed around the globe in countries
free from internal conflict or outright war, on the streets of towns
and cities where peaceful demonstrations in support of many causes
are trampled on by domestic 'security' bodies. National and local
laws are regularly and incrementally being tightened to make any kind
of protest by civilians a criminal act. Physical protest, written
protest, spoken protest – more and more are assaulted, arrested,
imprisoned and/or fined for trying to express disagreement. They tell
us we live in democracies but what kind of democracy is it where
dissent is disallowed?

"From Washington to Damascus, from Abuja to Colombo,
government leaders have justified horrific human rights violations by
talking of the need to keep the country 'safe'," states the
report. "In reality, the opposite is the case. Such
violations are one important reason why we live in such a dangerous
world today. There can be no security without human rights."
The report cites such events as the ongoing crisis in Syria, the
war against Gaza, the rise of non-state aggressors such as the
Islamic State and Boko Haram, the Ukrainian conflict, and
disappearances in Mexico as the more significant conflicts of the
year. It says that millions of civilians were killed last year while
the number of displaced people around the world exceeded 50 million
for the first time since the end of World War II.

Within this international scenario each reader of this blog, from
a variety of countries spread across the globe, will immediately be
also aware of incidents much closer to home where millions have been
displaced by economic reasons: loss of employment, home foreclosure,
land rights grabbed, displacement by international corporations bent
on profit from building mega-dams, mega-farms and mines, people
losing access to securing their own futures while profits are accrued
elsewhere. Millions die (or are they killed?) from poverty or from
diseases related to poverty because poverty gives no access to
necessary food and cures. Representation is sorely lacking on all
levels.

The report also highlights the failure of Western countries to
welcome and protect the millions of refugees. The human rights group
particularly singles out the European Union's immigration policy,
which Amnesty says has turned the continent into "fortress
Europe, putting lives at risk.""Those governments who have been most eager to speak out
loudly on the failures of other governments have shown themselves
reluctant to step forward and provide the essential assistance that
those refugees require," the report states.
According to the report, by the end of 2014, only 150,000 of over
4 million Syrian refugees were living in EU states, while 3,400
refugees and migrants died in the Mediterranean Sea trying to make
their way to Europe. And this number will surely grow now that the
Mare Nostrum rescue programme has finished and rescue operations have
been severely cut. The reason being it's too expensive to continue.
That tells us quite clearly where people fit on the scale of
desirables. But will these serious odds of drowning actually prevent
those who can see no other way out from trying for a better life?

The human rights group also criticizes the five permanent members
of the United Nations Security Council, which include Britain, China,
France, Russia and the U.S.. Salil Shetty, Secretary General of
Amnesty International, said the countries have "consistently
abused" their veto right to "promote their political
self-interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of
protecting civilians."
Backing a proposal agreed upon by roughly 40 other governments,
Amnesty is calling for the UN Security Council to "adopt a
code of conduct agreeing to voluntarily refrain from using the veto
in a way which would block Security Council action in situations of
genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity." Whether
as individuals we would agree or disagree with this proposal, or
indeed have any other proposals is not open for discussion. As with
most decisions taken, at local, national or international level, we
are not a party to be considered, except maybe when it's time to
catch a few votes to further self-interest.

It is the depth and breadth of the lack of engagement civil
society has in any meaningful manner with those who actually make our
laws and who proceed with plans that, quite clearly in so many cases,
majorities don't agree with is so astonishingly breathtaking when
told that it is democratic. Democracy, self-determination, is being
withheld by those who uphold the system which benefits the minority.
Capitalism will never yield democracy to us. We have to take it for
ourselves.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Why are the interviewers always catching Natalie Bennett
out? Is it because the Leader of the Green Party is not up to it? Or because
she was having a bad day? The second is her explanation for what happened
yesterday. Maybe she did have one but there is another possible explanation --
that the Green Party's reformist programme is incoherent and doesn't stand up
to scrutiny.

The Green Party supports capitalism and believes that under
it people's needs can be made to come before profit-making. But history has
amply demonstrated that this can't be done, that capitalism cannot be reformed
so as to benefit the majority in society.

So, when the Green Party advocates that 500,000 new houses
should be built (or any other expensive reform measure for that matter and
there are plenty on the Green Party's wish list), "how are you going to
pay for it?" is a question which revolutionary socialists can legitimately
pose as well as pro-capitalist interviewers. The Green Party answers vaguely
something along the lines of taxing the rich, corporations as well as
individuals. But that means reducing profits and profits are what makes
capitalism go round. So if you reduce them then you risk provoking an economic
downward and you're back to square one.

It's official Green Party policy that banks can create money
out of thin air and Bennett could have answered that the money to pay for the
500,000 new houses could simply be magicked into existence. Which of course
would cause massive inflation. Fortunately for her, she did not to give that
answer as the interviewer would have torn her to pieces. Or perhaps in this
case she decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that um...
er ... was the best way out.

Twenty-five years ago Derek Wall, once a Green Party spokesperson
(in the days before they had a Leader) described rather well what was likely to
happen if ever a reformist, Green Party government were to be elected:

‘A Green government will be controlled by the economy rather
than being in control. On coming to office through coalition or more absolute
electoral success, it would be met by an instant collapse of sterling as 'hot
money' and entrepreneurial capital went elsewhere. The exchange rate would fall
and industrialists would move their factories to countries with more relaxed
environmental controls and workplace regulation. Sources of finance would dry
up as unemployment rocketed, slashing the revenue from taxation and pushing up
the social security bills. The money for ecological reconstruction – the building
of railways, the closing of motorways and construction of a proper sewage
system – would run out’ (Getting There, 1990, p. 78).

The socialist idea is ecological

The conclusion is not that we can't do anything but that we
should act to get rid of capitalism and its production for profit and establish
a socialist system, based on the common ownership and democratic control of the
means of production. This, and only this, is the framework in which problems
such as the housing crisis can be solved once and for all. Then, it wouldn't be
a question of trying to put people before profits. It would be people instead
of profits since production for profit, and so profits, would no longer exist.

Are you angry and frustrated with the usual kind of
politics? But, nevertheless, still committed to a fundamental change to
society. We have to confess, there does exist a certain amount of skepticism
about voting but the Socialist Party runs candidates in elections as it is a
time when people are more open to thinking about politics. For socialists,
standing for parliament represents an opportunity to put forward the key
elements of socialist principles.

The expansion of voting rights is one of the recurring
themes of history. Many people understand the limitations of ‘democracy’. They
see pro-capitalist parties imposing austerity upon the people and giving
generous breaks to the plutocracy. Everyday people think the world is overdue
for change. For those sickened by the whole affair, there is good news: there
are candidates worth voting for, even if in just a handful of constituencies. The
Socialist Party is the only party in this election which stands resolutely against
the present economic system and for the overthrow of wage-slavery. The
Socialist Party’s campaign is to show that the system doesn’t work and that the
world capitalist system is rotten to the core and must be replaced before it’s
too late for society. We say everything depends on the building a genuinely
socialist party of the working class.

There’s barely a difference between the Labour Party and the
Conservatives. Not surprising, given that both aim for the same thing: to
manage the capitalist economy. Both are in the pockets of big business and the
corporations. Both have zero to offer the working class. Neither party has the determination
to genuinely address climate change. The jockeying between the two parties over
who can be rougher on benefit claimants and tougher on immigration is a
despicable. Regardless of which party gains government the majority of people
in this country, the working class, will be worse off. Whoever wins will
continue to oversee measures that will profit a tiny minority of rich, the
capitalist class. Whoever wins will continue to promote the decline of the real
wages of workers. Whoever wins will continue to subsidise wasteful
environmentally and climatically destructive methods of production that
ultimately threaten our very existence. Whoever wins will continue to exercise xenophobic
immigration rules. Whoever wins will continue to protect the socially,
economically and environmentally unsustainable system of capitalism, a system driven
by consumerism rather than social need that enslaves the majority of the
world’s population

The Socialist Party is committed to both democracy and
socialism. In fact, the path to socialism has largely been one of winning
battles for democracy. Socialism will widen participation and public engagement
beyond even democracy’s best practices today. We have no illusions about
capitalism; we will need to move beyond it and replace it. Basic change never
comes from elections alone, but it almost always proceeds through electoral
battles. We are not simply looking to redistribute wealth. We want to take down
the structures of class.

One of the greatest obstacles to winning working people to
the perspective of a socialist revolution is the widespread and deeply
ingrained illusion — inculcated in their minds day-in and day-out— that through
reforms passed in parliament, people can defend and advance their interests. On
the contrary, parliament is an instrument of capitalist rule. Socialism can only realistically be
implemented with the wide public support of an awakened working class. The chief
objective of the Socialist Party at the moment is educational, to enlighten the
workers for the conquest of political power and to arouse working people to a
realisation of the historic role they are called upon to play, namely, their
self-emancipation from the yoke of capitalist exploitation.

The Socialist Party practices transparency. Not only members
but non-members are welcome to attend all meetings of our administrative
bodies, and we openly publish regular reports of discussions and our finances.
Those granted with special responsibilities are all elected. If you feel these
views are in tune with your own, we strongly urge you to make contact. The more
politically conscious workers are becoming increasing aware that politics is
not about choosing the lesser of two evils at the ballot box: it’s a year-round
class battle in our workplaces and in our communities. Voting for a lesser evil
does not bring relief to working people. There is a better way of doing things,
and it is called socialism. To achieve this, we must convince the majority that
socialism is not only preferable, it is possible. A society based on satisfying human need is
totally realistic.

The anarchist slogan “Don’t vote, it only encourages them” must
now be replaced by the not-so-cynical slogan “Not voting only reinforces them”
when there is a genuine socialist candidate in the race, for a change.

The Socialist Candidates
Steve Colborn - Easington;

Robert Cox – Canterbury;

Mike Foster - Oxford West and Abingdon;

Brian Johnson - Swansea West;

Danny Lambert - Vauxhall;

Bill Martin - Islington North;

Kevin Parkin - Oxford East;

Howard Pilott - Brighton Pavilion;

Jacqueline Shodeke - Brighton Kemptown:

Andy Thomas -
Folkestone and Hythe.

If there is no Socialist Party candidate in your
constituency, that doesn't stop you helping us via the internet and social
media.